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Francis Davidson Profile
Francis Davidson

@FDavidsonT

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Following
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147

Founded Sonder as an undergrad, led it through IPO in 8 years. Public company CEO for 14 quarters. Working on new ideas.

Joined September 2014
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
15 days
After 11 years of blood, sweat and tears – my time as Sonder's CEO has come to an end. Building a company from the ground up has been more rewarding, but also more challenging that I could have ever imagined.
@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
15 days
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
15 days
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 months
Highly recommend this book by @stephenwitt. Goes through the play by play on the shift away from gaming, correctly predicting the limits of CPU efficiency, the network effects and performance enhancements behind CUDA. Jensen’s pragmatic take on AI is refreshing.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 months
Excellent overview of trade. Basics are covered, but I also learned:.- tariff levels are uncorrelated to trade balance. Raise tariffs and your exports take a hit too, not just imports. - the capital account surplus is very valuable to the US. Eliminating the trade deficit implies.
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Russ Roberts
2 months
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
5 months
RT @davidsacks47: .@VP @JDVance gave a brilliant and optimistic speech at the Paris AI Summit today. He made clear that America will remain….
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
5 months
Bad manager pattern when a direct report quits:. Instead of raising the bar and hiring externally, give a battlefield promotion to someone internal that's not ready for the position. (1) Less work.(2) Avoid backlash.(3) Gain political capital. Internal promos are often the right.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
5 months
RT @DaveShapi: This is the most important data this year (so far). Most people don't understand the implications. Some of us do. https:….
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
5 months
Grok doesn't top the evals, but the data advantage is seemingly significant for real-time events.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
11 months
Thrilled to announce Sonder's long term strategic licensing agreement with Marriott, as well as ~$146 million in additional liquidity. Thank you to the Sonder team, our board, advisors and Marriott for making this happen. I couldn't be more excited about this new chapter.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
The answer, after much hard work by our team, has been a resounding yes. I'm thrilled to finally announce our first hotel collection: Powered by Sonder. Check out one of our 23 Powered by Sonder hotels across 13 markets, with many more to come!.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
In 2018 at @SonderStays, we decided to start experimenting with boutique hotels. Can our technology and operations approach be tailored to be successful not just in short term rentals, but in the broader hotel market?.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
7/ Finally, we’re using this moment to double down on our culture. Some say it shouldn’t be a priority right now, but we believe that it’s when execution needs to be at its best that culture matters most. You can find our culture deck here:
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
6/ When all the focus is on a singular goal, creativity seems boundless. We’re finding ways to improve every subcomponent of our unit economics, overhead costs and growth investments without sacrificing customer experience or longer term value.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
5/ You'd think that this spells disaster for culture and employee attrition. It's been the opposite at Sonder. We went through 2 layoffs and stock options are underwater, yet retention is at historic highs. I'm thankful to our team – they see the upside and are motivated as ever.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
4/ Stocks that fall off a cliff lose liquidity which further restricts demand. Anyone wanting to buy or sell a large position could massively move the price, so they wait, and the stock becomes even more thinly traded. Prices appear disconnected from fundamentals.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
3/ Sonder is cutting burn really fast. You can see it on this chart. We also have a lot of cash on hand. Yet trajectory and guidance don't move the needle. The graveyard of failed de-SPACs is too daunting – everyone seems to be guilty until proven innocent.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
2/ The metrics that matter shifted overnight. For years, the focus was on customer experience, growth and unit economics. Now, free cash flow seems to trumps all. Sonder's been trading at less than 0.2x revenue rate, while profitable industry peers are at above 3x revenue.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
1/ A lot’s been said about growth companies seeing their valuation go down 90%+ in the last couple of years, but little’s been shared about what’s going on inside. As the CEO of a young public company whose market cap went from $2.2B to $100M in a year, here are my observations:.
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
Culture makes or breaks businesses. At @SonderStays we've spent the last 8 years iterating and refining our culture. We've decided to open-source our work by sharing our Culture Deck. You can find it here:
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@FDavidsonT
Francis Davidson
2 years
Deep dive with Ryan Mann at McKinsey on Sonder's disruptive stance in hospitality.
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